So Steve Rattner writes in the N.Y. Times yesterday that the federal government "has to" bail out Detroit. Typical of those East Coast m-f's. If they want to help, how about setting up a nonprofit that anybody can donate to? See exactly how generous the American people are, when it comes to bailing out corrupt cities and the stupid people who elect felons.

Obviously this is not the only factor in Detroit's bankruptcy, but the biggest issue with our entire system...at the city, state and federal level, is out of control spending and back-breaking unfunded liabilities in pension and health care benefits for our public sector employees. In other words, as Steyn pointed out, Detroit is an outlier only in the sense that it is the first (major city) to bite this bullet. Several smaller cities in CA, for example, already have.

Note that the number of employees does not include teachers or county stuff like RTA, etc. Note also that Detroit's average compensation for city employees is about $56,000. Cleveland's is $109,000. There's not that much difference in COL between the cities. Places like Philly, Boston, Seattle are higher than CLE, but those areas have significantly higher costs of living.

At the state level in Ohio, we are not in as much trouble as CA and IL, but our two largest unions of state employees have combined unfunded liabilities of over $60 billion...with a B...and their proposed reforms amount to tinkering at the margins.

It kind of worries me as a Cuyahoga County employee now that my retirement money is going to PERS now instead of Medicare. I don't know which is a worse investment. As people live longer, the strain on local and state pension systems is increasing, while revenues are decreasing. On the plus side, whatever time I spend on the FD also goes to PERS, making my retirement that much closer.

I also have a year or two of Railroad Retirement, so if I ever do get to retire, I'm going to need an accountant to get it all worked out. If there is anything for me by then from any of the three.

What a lot of people don't get is that when the tax dollars fall short of the required payments into the pension and healthcare funds for these unions, the law makes it nearly impossible to underfund them....consequently there are only two things that can realistically happen....huge tax increases...or cutbacks in all the other things the State of Ohio pays for...like roads, prisons, mental hospitals, universities, non-employee costs of schools, etc...or of course...both.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

An interesting discussion of the legality (or not) of restructuring public sector employee pension obligations in bankruptcy proceedings...and what it means for Detroit and other cities yet to crash and burn.

They all need to be eventually converted from defined benefit to defined contribution plans in order to remain viable, but as I said above, the politicians and unions have now got them so embedded in, and protected by, state and local statute, that reform is extremely difficult if not impossible. And the result is Detroit...and many others...including whole states...to follow. And the exact same structure exists with the two principal federal entitlement programs. Who was it, by the way, who likened Social Security to a Ponzi scheme...and was roundly excoriated by the media and the Democrats for it? Oh yeah...Mitt Romney.

A responsible political party would have the courage to face up to the problem and tell the American people that the problem is fixable, but not without pain. Paul Ryan tried to do that...and was crucified by members of his own party, and of course the entire other party, for doing it. So that leaves the number of responsible political parties at zero.

Edit: More on unfunded liabilities for cities....turns out the unfunded healthcare benefits are worse than unfunded pension benefits...mostly because no one has required cities to fund them like they do with pensions:

jb wrote:Dan-o, it's all about whose Ox is being gored. Public unions will divest from pension into IRA's/403bs when you can pry the current system from their cold dead hand hands.

Would you give up that sweet deal for the common good of of the taxpayer?

For starters, there's a good reason public sector unions were illegal till the 60's...those famous right-wingers FDR and George Meany understood why. Because the taxpayer doesn't have a seat at the negotiating table. It's supposed to be the elected politician, but let's not kid ourselves.

To answer your question, I'd like to think I would, at the very least, accept reductions in the rates of growth, COLA's etc...and even outright reductions in benefits....and increased contributions to health care benefits...if I knew it meant the system would continue to be viable for the union teachers, firemen, and policemen of my grandchildren and their grandchildren. (My wife receives an STRS pension, so I am not just talking about a hypothetical here). And I certainly advocate enrolling all new public sector employees in defined contribution plans, as one more way to try to avoid the coming train wreck.

You can say it's not fair to change the rules in the middle of the game for existing workers and retirees, but if new employees know the rules when they start, it's perfectly fair. The problem is that doing it that way will be too little too late to stem the tide. As bad as things are right now, we are just on the front end of the massive boomer retirement surge. It will get way worse before it gets better.

And if they (public sector unions) don't agree to the needed reforms, I hope they will at least stop pretending to be involved in "public service", and posing as less self-interested than their counterparts in the private sector....(you know, the suckers working as many hours as their boss says they have to work, and getting fired if they screw up or are proven incompetent.) Sure...that'll happen.

It's funny how, whenever the left is confronted with its miserable track record of poverty and oppression and death on its worldwide resume, they resort to pointing to Sweden as a place where socialism "works". But even Sweden is in retreat from the welfare state model...and has recently partially privatized their retirement system...with excellent results. It's saving their overburdened system...but our leadership has us on a path to the place most of Europe is abandoning as unworkable. Their greatest conceit and delusion is that this is somehow "progressive".

As an aside...and just FYI...there's so much whining these days about the Citizens United decision (mostly by people who don't understand it at all) the thrust of which is how corporate money (which they also are wrongly convinced goes mostly to Republicans) is corrupting our electoral system.

The website OpenSecrets tracks all political spending, and has put out a list of all such spending from 1989 to 2012. It is, to say the least, enlightening...and helps explain why politicians have for decades been feathering the nests of public employees(and union employees more broadly). The unions are paying the freight. You have to get down to #18 to find an entity donating predominantly to Republicans...and the numbers are dwarfed by Dem donors.

Now wait a minute. You guys act like public employees are stealing from the tax payers because they get pension and health coverage. That's bullshit, as we pay in all through our working years. Dearly.

What the cities should be doing with that deduction is investing it. And then it will be there at the end of the career for the employee, just like any other retirement investment.

But that's not how it works, is it? When it's time to retire, that money's gone. The gov is broke. So we paid all that money into the plan instead of social security, and have nothing to show for it.

No one, least of all me, said the public employees are stealing from the taxpayers....although it might be nice if occasionally they acknowledged that they do work for us.

And of course they do invest the public employee pension dollars, and in many ways those dollars perform better than private sector dollars do in Soc. Sec. One of the problems is that they base their projections of growth for future benefits on rates of return (mostly in the 7-9% range) that nobody is even close to realizing today or for the last several years. So the actual state of these pension funds is worse than even their projections say they are.

In fact, you should feel good about being in a PERS or STRS, because at least those funds have actual dollars in them. Social Security contributions are spent as fast as they come in, and all we have is an IOU from the US Treasury...a promise to pay...somehow, some way...a promise that is increasingly hard to believe as we spend a trillion dollars more than we take in every year since '08.

My concern about this is not born of a dislike for, or lack of respect or for public sector employees. Like I said, I'm married to one for starters. My concern is that the system remain viable for future generations, because I have kids and grandkids I care about.

No doubt people are tired of hearing me say it, but the biggest political issue of our time is the fact that we have too many people in the public cart, and not enough people pulling it. For the most part, those people do honorable, worthwhile work, but we need to reform the way we compensate and pension them, because we are on a train headed off a cliff right now.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

Spin wrote:Now wait a minute. You guys act like public employees are stealing from the tax payers because they get pension and health coverage. That's bullshit, as we pay in all through our working years. Dearly.

What the cities should be doing with that deduction is investing it. And then it will be there at the end of the career for the employee, just like any other retirement investment.

But that's not how it works, is it? When it's time to retire, that money's gone. The gov is broke. So we paid all that money into the plan instead of social security, and have nothing to show for it.

The gov is not the victim...

Spin, its still a Ponzi scheme. I doubt the retirees contributed commensurate to draw. The same factors that hit GM will hit the public sector.

jb is right that most people's contributions (into SS at least) have not been commensurate with what they draw out...at least until recently. I was a little surprised to see that it's evening out, for whatever reason, according to this NYT chart:

No comparison really. Krauthammer has more intellect in his pinky finger than Hannity ever dreamed of. A rather boilerplate lefty response from you though, jb. Not a word of argument, let alone rebuttal of what he wrote...just blithe dismissal.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

danwismar wrote:No comparison really. Krauthammer has more intellect in his pinky finger than Hannity ever dreamed of. A rather boilerplate lefty response from you though, jb. Not a word of argument, let alone rebuttal of what he wrote...just blithe dismissal.

The chipmunk out my window has more on the ball than Hannity.

While he's truly no dope, Krauthammer is a talking head on the far right. He's no different from a liberal putting out EJ Dionne with a straight face trying to suggest anything but an agenda is flowing from his pen.

The fact he looks like a corpse has no bearing on my opinion. ;-) But if they ever make "Interview with a Vampire II" Charles has an inside track on the role.

Its an is what it is proposition, Danny. You read a Krauthammer piece, you get conservative talking points, not insight. Add in that it's from the Review and..... it's pretty much a Cracka, please, proposition. I can pretty much kniow what's in it before I read it. That's the trouble with most of our media. So little actually makes you think.

Of course it has a point of view. Politics is about advocacy and persuasion. Educate yourself on an issue...take a position, and then make arguments that can persuade others. If you want to call that "talking points"...fine. The question is, are the talking points coherent...persuasive...logical....or dare I say it...true?

Seems like, in your view, anyone who has taken a position (on either side) is disqualified from being taken seriously....or from having the capacity to make someone else think. I say that's nonsense. Refusing to take both sides in an argument just means you are persuaded by one side more than the other...not that you are unfamiliar with the argument on the other side. I can recite lefty talking points better than most lefties. I just find them unpersuasive.

Your "Cracka" comment is incoherent. Please explain how NR is "Cracka, please" with some examples...You'll forgive me for doubting there is any real basis for the remark, since you admit to knowing what the articles say without reading them.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

danwismar wrote:Of course it has a point of view. Politics is about advocacy and persuasion. Educate yourself on an issue...take a position, and then make arguments that can persuade others. If you want to call that "talking points"...fine. The question is, are the talking points coherent...persuasive...logical....or dare I say it...true?

Seems like, in your view, anyone who has taken a position (on either side) is disqualified from being taken seriously....or from having the capacity to make someone else think. I say that's nonsense. Refusing to take both sides in an argument just means you are persuaded by one side more than the other...not that you are unfamiliar with the argument on the other side. I can recite lefty talking points better than most lefties. I just find them unpersuasive.

Your "Cracka" comment is incoherent. Please explain how NR is "Cracka, please" with some examples...You'll forgive me for doubting there is any real basis for the remark, since you admit to knowing what the articles say without reading them.

Dan, if we educate ourselves as you suggest, and I agree is a good idea, then we educate ourselves on sources. Sources can include publications, media outlets, institutes, and individual content providers. For many of these sources we know the slant before we even see what is produced. For some that slant is hard and completely partisan. For others, there's a lean.

a) Scan the URL and proffer a "Pffft, yeah right" response without wasting, errrr investing the 5 minutes to verify the content;b ) thoughtfully read it with an open mind and reflect upon the message and research that statistics and facts contained therein;c ) tell the truth and admit to "a";d ) lie and claim "b"

Had you posted a WSJ link, I go in with an open mind. was it a factual piece? Was it in the financial section or front section? Or was it in the editorial pages? same tack for the NYT. They can have fine pieces but when they editorialize we know their lean. Krauthammer is 100% dead-red hard right, not even the feighnt of a lean anymore. He used to be like Will and be a free-thinker from the right. He's abandoned that pretense and is a propagandist no different from Schultz or Maddow.

Now onto "Cracka Please!".....

Well, rules prohibit me from writing "N**** please!", a common term of derision regarding the plausibility of an opinion or statement, or "Bitch please" as you are not a bitch. So now that we as white men have taken back the word "Cracka and dropped the "er" for an "a" we are freely able to use it as a sign of our bond and rise from our trashy immigrant roots to reflect our pride. We can do this but African-Americans, as authors of this piece of hate speech, can not. As my brother, I use the term as part endearment/consciousness/identification and part derision of your thought process resulting in your statement. See also, frequent Wesly Snipes' as Nino Brown quotes in New Jack City for an early use of the original term in every other response to to G-Money.

Some examples of eliciting a response "Cracka Please!" might be:

- Tristin Thompson is a core starter on a contending championship team.

- Genesis is an outstanding rock group in the artistic sense.

- Eric Mangini is a misunderstood genius.

- Fox News: "We report, you decide".

- "Reverend" Al Sharpton

- Eye has a heart of gold.

- ESPN has no SEC bias.

- Peeker gives Brandon Weeden a fair and unbiased opportunity to show his wares on the field while withholding judgment.

You're right. I would pass over that link, but I would do it because I have already seen and heard and read enough to know that Michael Moore is a poseur and a fraud. He excoriates capitalism while basking in its many fruits. He claims to be an urban, middle class/working class guy, when he comes from monied suburbia. He lobbies for gun control while employing personal armed bodyguards.

By contrast, the credentials of Charles Krauthammer as a public intellectual and a man of integrity and depth, are beyond serious dispute.

On the other hand, there is much that is good about the New Republic...at least historically, when admirable liberals like Marty Peretz and Peter Beinart...and even Andrew Sullivan were on the masthead. I read TNR today...even in its new, much more leftist incarnation under the influence of the 20-something Facebook zillionaire owner.

I guess the Cracka, please remark is meant as a slam less on NR as a publication, and more on your own faulty caricature of what it is...presumably something for white folks only. That would ignore its several black and Hispanic contributors, let alone its many minority readers and subscribers. Even women!

I would invite anyone (especially those of you who self-identify as lefties) to spend some time on the websites of the three principal mainstream organs of conservative political thought...NR, Weekly Standard, and Commentary, or better yet, read a whole issue or two....then report back here all the expressions of hatred, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, or white supremacy, or any explicit or implicit appeals to the above that you find on those pages.

The only dangerous bias is the unacknowledged one. The people to be wary of are those who pose as free of them.

Last edited by danwismar on Mon Jul 29, 2013 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

danwismar wrote:You're right. I would pass over that link, but I would do it because I have already seen and heard and read enough to know that Michael Moore is a poseur and a fraud. He excoriates capitalism while basking in its many fruits. He claims to be an urban, middle class/working class guy, when he comes from monied suburbia. He lobbies for gun control while employing personal armed bodyguards. On the other hand, there is much that is good about the New Republic...at least historically, when admirable liberals like Marty Peretz and Peter Beinart...and even Andrew Sullivan were on the masthead. I read TNR today...even in its new, much more leftist incarnation under the influence of the 20-something Facebook zillionaire owner.

I guess the Cracka, please remark is meant as a slam less on NR as a publication, and more on your own faulty caricature of what it is...presumably something for white folks only. That would ignore its several black and Hispanic contributors, let alone its many minority readers and subscribers. Even women!

I would invite anyone (especially those of you who self-identify as lefties) to spend some time on the websites of the three principal mainstream organs of conservative political thought...NR, Weekly Standard, and Commentary, or better yet, read a whole issue or two....then report back here all the expressions of hatred, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, or white supremacy, or any explicit or implicit appeals to the above that you find on those pages.

The only dangerous bias is the unacknowledged one. The people to be wary of are those who pose as free of them.

<---- Admits to reading the Review on occasion and not hating all of it. Like I said, I miss ole Billy SR. I remember when real Conservatives used to have kueth and class. I never understood the populist conservatives who make a mockery out of conservatism as having an intellectual basis. I see them for the manipulative demagogues they are. They are brilliant in their ability to get the white working class to oppose their own interests to the death of the white middle class however. Credit where due.

Krauthammer has morphed into this. I can't take him seriously intellectually, danny.

I have no clue how you linked Cracka Puhleaze! to the NR, but your mind works in ways that mind simply can not.

That is hilarious. What...did you just put down "What's the Matter With Kansas"?

The rejection of leftist policies by the white middle-class couldn't possibly have anything to do with the leftist policies themselves. It can only be attributable to the zen-like wizardry of conservatives who have tricked the rubes into being unable to recognize what is manifestly in their best interests.

Fucking amazing.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

jb wrote:Krauthammer has morphed into this. I can't take him seriously intellectually, danny.

I will await one example of a position he has taken, a statement he has made, that places him so far out on the fringes of mainstream thinking and civil discourse that he can no longer be taken seriously as a public intellectual. Provide your own counterpoint, of course, in order to show where reasonableness resides.

Couth.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

jb wrote:Krauthammer has morphed into this. I can't take him seriously intellectually, danny.

I will await one example of a position he has taken, a statement he has made, that places him so far out on the fringes of mainstream thinking and civil discourse that he can no longer be taken seriously as a public intellectual. Provide your own counterpoint, of course, in order to show where reasonableness resides.

Couth.

I don't record his "harumph harupm" versions of atta boi, Luther when he's on Fox.

danwismar wrote:That is hilarious. What...did you just put down "What's the Matter With Kansas"?

The rejection of leftist policies by the white middle-class couldn't possibly have anything to do with the leftist policies themselves. It can only be attributable to the zen-like wizardry of conservatives who have tricked the rubes into being unable to recognize what is manifestly in their best interests.

Fucking amazing.

It is. It is amazing how the conservatives have gotten the white middle class to fuck itself in the ass and then turn around and yell "NO CLASS WARFARE" while reaming itself open.

genius, really.

Probably a result of the liberal wing of the Dems being so loathsome as to turn off its major bloc from the FDR coalition.

danwismar wrote:Have a problem with this particular piece? Have a counter-argument?

Make it.

The old Kraut's point for this waste of bandwidth: Detroit is broken and bankrupt because of..... ta dah: Corrupt Democratic government! And he gets to insert a little pseudo intellectual name to some alleged postulate.

Not the reality of 50 years of American de-industrialization without a single coherent policy to counter-balance the easily foreseeable effects...

Not the issue of land locked inner cities left to rot and die with no alternatives...

Not the issue of the lack of a decent living wage for millions of people frankly incapable of ever taking a place at a knowledge - based economy...

Not a hard-line "starve the beast" mentality that precludes any actual productive compromised-based problem solving for the sake of ideology...

Not a complete abdication of Judeo-Christian ethics correctly answering the questions once posed to Cain when he answered "am I my brother's keeper?"...

Not the un-American blind eye toward nationlism as we exported a whole economic segment to the state-run Chinese government so this quarter could show the maximum returns without any strategic thought...

Not the billions spent on buidling schools so the Taliban could blow them up or "freely elected democratic Iraq" could tell us to rotate on it or the billions just flat-out stolen and lost in Kabul rather than investing in American education and infrastructure...

Just a bunch of people clicking the lever over the years and not putting Kruat's party in power.

Yep, that's it. To quote a line for a post-apocolyptic flick reminiscent of modern day Detroit, "I'll buy THAT for a dollar", yck yuck yuck.

Brilliant. I NEVER could have guessed that until I read the piece. I had this dumb-assed idea that the forces were larger and decades in the making as the once great hub of our industrial might that created the 20th Century went completely down the shitter.

Thank you for goading me into enlightenment yet again. I owe you a debt of gratitude. Point yours.

danwismar wrote:Have a problem with this particular piece? Have a counter-argument?

Make it.

The old Kraut's point for this waste of bandwidth: Detroit is broken and bankrupt because of..... ta dah: Corrupt Democratic government! And he gets to insert a little pseudo intellectual name to some alleged postulate.

Not the reality of 50 years of American de-industrialization without a single coherent policy to counter-balance the easily foreseeable effects...

Not the issue of land locked inner cities left to rot and die with no alternatives...

Not the issue of the lack of a decent living wage for millions of people frankly incapable of ever taking a place at a knowledge - based economy...

Not a hard-line "starve the beast" mentality that precludes any actual productive compromised-based problem solving for the sake of ideology...

Not a complete abdication of Judeo-Christian ethics correctly answering the questions once posed to Cain when he answered "am I my brother's keeper?"...

Not the un-American blind eye toward nationlism as we exported a whole economic segment to the state-run Chinese government so this quarter could show the maximum returns without any strategic thought...

Not the billions spent on buidling schools so the Taliban could blow them up or "freely elected democratic Iraq" could tell us to rotate on it or the billions just flat-out stolen and lost in Kabul rather than investing in American education and infrastructure...

Just a bunch of people clicking the lever over the years and not putting Kruat's party in power.

Yep, that's it. To quote a line for a post-apocolyptic flick reminiscent of modern day Detroit, "I'll buy THAT for a dollar", yck yuck yuck.

Brilliant. I NEVER could have guessed that until I read the piece. I had this dumb-assed idea that the forces were larger and decades in the making as the once great hub of our industrial might that created the 20th Century went completely down the shitter.

Thank you for goading me into enlightenment yet again. I owe you a debt of gratitude. Point yours.

You realize that Detroit DID in fact have a decent living wage, so decent it was the highest median income in the entire nation, for quite a while IIRC. The globalization of automobile manufacturing certainly plays a part in Detroit's fall, but Detroit was way way past the point of no return before 2009 and the recent fall of US automakers.

Sorry but all that glory and dominance Detroit held didn't evaporate overnight due to the economic slide of the last 4 years.

Criminals in this town used to believe in things...honor, respect."I heard your dog is sick, so bought you this shovel"

Well, rules prohibit me from writing "N**** please!", a common term of derision regarding the plausibility of an opinion or statement, or "Bitch please" as you are not a bitch. So now that we as white men have taken back the word "Cracka and dropped the "er" for an "a" we are freely able to use it as a sign of our bond and rise from our trashy immigrant roots to reflect our pride. We can do this but African-Americans, as authors of this piece of hate speech, can not. As my brother, I use the term as part endearment/consciousness/identification and part derision of your thought process resulting in your statement. See also, frequent Wesly Snipes' as Nino Brown quotes in New Jack City for an early use of the original term in every other response to to G-Money.

Some examples of eliciting a response "Cracka Please!" might be:

- Tristin Thompson is a core starter on a contending championship team.

- Genesis is an outstanding rock group in the artistic sense.

- Eric Mangini is a misunderstood genius.

- Fox News: "We report, you decide".

- "Reverend" Al Sharpton

- Eye has a heart of gold.

- ESPN has no SEC bias.

- Peeker gives Brandon Weeden a fair and unbiased opportunity to show his wares on the field while withholding judgment.

- Jimmy Haslam knew nothing of cost plussing.

This was well done.

<--was once thwarted in his attempt at a genial "cracka ass cracka" by a partial-injun.

jb wrote:The old Kraut's point for this waste of bandwidth: Detroit is broken and bankrupt because of..... ta dah: Corrupt Democratic government! And he gets to insert a little pseudo intellectual name to some alleged postulate.

Not the reality of 50 years of American de-industrialization without a single coherent policy to counter-balance the easily foreseeable effects...

Not the issue of land locked inner cities left to rot and die with no alternatives...

Not the issue of the lack of a decent living wage for millions of people frankly incapable of ever taking a place at a knowledge - based economy...

Not a hard-line "starve the beast" mentality that precludes any actual productive compromised-based problem solving for the sake of ideology...

Not a complete abdication of Judeo-Christian ethics correctly answering the questions once posed to Cain when he answered "am I my brother's keeper?"...

Not the un-American blind eye toward nationlism as we exported a whole economic segment to the state-run Chinese government so this quarter could show the maximum returns without any strategic thought...

Not the billions spent on buidling schools so the Taliban could blow them up or "freely elected democratic Iraq" could tell us to rotate on it or the billions just flat-out stolen and lost in Kabul rather than investing in American education and infrastructure...

Just a bunch of people clicking the lever over the years and not putting Kruat's party in power.

Yep, that's it. To quote a line for a post-apocolyptic flick reminiscent of modern day Detroit, "I'll buy THAT for a dollar", yck yuck yuck.

Brilliant. I NEVER could have guessed that until I read the piece. I had this dumb-assed idea that the forces were larger and decades in the making as the once great hub of our industrial might that created the 20th Century went completely down the shitter.

Thank you for goading me into enlightenment yet again. I owe you a debt of gratitude. Point yours.

Well, goading is what I do...

Christopher Hitchens always said that the task of the intellectual is to argue for complexity...so, in that regard...well done, sir. The fall of Detroit is not reducible to just corrupt politicians and bureaucrats (nor do I think that's what CK was claiming)

The bankruptcy of the city government is not isolated from the auto industry troubles, but it is a different animal. Besides, we are forever being told that the president saved the auto industry...a claim that doesn't exactly jibe with "the whole industrial hub going down the shitter" thing. At the moment, the stock price of GM would have to triple for the American taxpayer to be made whole on the bailout. Maybe we'll be wiser next time GM comes after the taxpayer with the tin cup.

Many cities are in the same straits though, although not all. Been to Indy lately? Detroit has taken corruption to all new heights, you must admit. Their last mayor is in prison, for starters.

And like you say...(and I think we have been in some agreement on this issue upthread...take note, Peeker) Detroit is hardly unique in its fiscal train wreck...and anyone who is paying attention will tell you that by far the biggest factor is looming unfunded liabilities for public employees pension and health care costs....and the corruption (and cowardice and fear...and careerism) of politicians is a large factor in that ticking time bomb.

Yes, there are other factors, not least the gradual deindustrialization of America. Gone are the days when a high school graduate could walk down to the steel mill or the Ford plant and get a job at $17/hr screwing in dome lights, and retire 40 years later with his mortgage paid off and a summer cottage with a boat down at the lake. That's not strictly a U.S. phenomenon either. Lots of folks think all these manufacturing jobs went to China...but China is hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs as well. And if college grads can't find suitable work, what is the hope for the growing percentages of kids (and especially minority kids) who don't even finish high school.

Getting a job in the knowledge economy requires....knowledge. Our schools are not turning out the kinds of skills our companies require...and that includes our colleges. If there's any aspect of this issue on which I can speak with some expertise...this is it. Every day I confer with employers telling me about their personnel needs...and their frustration with the marketplace of job-seekers they encounter in trying to fill them. A mismatch. Hence the need to hire foreign nationals, who have the skills they need...even though they would much prefer to hire Americans...not so much out of national pride or loyalty, but because hiring foreign nationals brings its own set of issues and problems for employers, not least the obvious language and communications ones. Another thread, I know...

BTW, if you took anything I said as a personal slam, jb, I assure you it was not intended as such...and if so, I'd appreciate knowing what that was. I enjoy the dialogue...and if we had identical perspectives it would be not worth the calories and the carpal tunnel. Peace.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

jb wrote:Krauthammer has morphed into this. I can't take him seriously intellectually, danny.

I will await one example of a position he has taken, a statement he has made, that places him so far out on the fringes of mainstream thinking and civil discourse that he can no longer be taken seriously as a public intellectual. Provide your own counterpoint, of course, in order to show where reasonableness resides.

Couth.

I don't record his "harumph harupm" versions of atta boi, Luther when he's on Fox.

Well, you apparently watch a lot more FOX than I do...my exposure to him has been his syndicated columns, speeches, essays, etc. Like this...

By the way, his TV appearance might have a little bit more of a healthful glow had he not been rendered a paraplegic in his early 20's, allowing him to, you know, maybe walk....for the last 40 years....to get a little exercise.

"I believe it is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting." H.L. Mencken

I try to disagree without being disagreeable....succeeding occasionally...and jb has taken a solemn vow in that regard, and he's much better at it than I am.

It's all good...until someone puts an eye out.

Not meant to be disparaging or a condemnation of the conversation.

Seriously, you and JB's conversation is emblematic of the reason politics are so frustrating to me. You have a point of view and so does he. Both of you are smart individuals. Both of you have many, many common interests.

It's amazing to me that there can be such a philosophical difference on the political side and it's amazing to me how dug in and territorial people get over their philosophies and views.

Almost as important as arguing about a quarterback in this town, it seems.

It's two motivated individuals pushing a giant boulder. Except they're on opposite sides of the boulder and they're pushing against the other's efforts. Both are fiercely in favor of pushing and pushing with all their power and neither will pull. Nor will either join the other on the 'proper' side of the boulder.

danwismar wrote:BTW, if you took anything I said as a personal slam, jb, I assure you it was not intended as such...and if so, I'd appreciate knowing what that was. I enjoy the dialogue...and if we had identical perspectives it would be not worth the calories and the carpal tunnel. Peace.

I was poking fun at the edit.

Give yourself a break. We're just having fun. No lines crossed from my perspective.

Dan, I hate to say this, but some people just don't have the grey matter to hack it in a knowledge based economy and never will. I'm not talking about just higher ed either. have a conversation about FMB about high quality welding sometime. Understand the smarts and dexterity you have to have to be a journeyman tradesman. There's plenty of people who just aren't that blessed. Remember, "The world needs ditch diggers too, Danny."

If someone will work their tail off for a solid 45 / week they should get a fair shake at a living wage in this country. There's enough to go around. It creates markets and is good for the country. Henry Ford understood that and Detroit thrived. We forgot that and Detroit crumbled.

And don't get all apoplectic. I'm not suggesting government wealth redistribution. The government is too bloated, inept and corrupt to do that. But a legislated minimum wage that could provide for something a little better for someone, and adult, who isn't education material? I can buy in.

jb wrote:Krauthammer has morphed into this. I can't take him seriously intellectually, danny.

I will await one example of a position he has taken, a statement he has made, that places him so far out on the fringes of mainstream thinking and civil discourse that he can no longer be taken seriously as a public intellectual. Provide your own counterpoint, of course, in order to show where reasonableness resides.

Couth.

I don't record his "harumph harupm" versions of atta boi, Luther when he's on Fox.

Well, you apparently watch a lot more FOX than I do...my exposure to him has been his syndicated columns, speeches, essays, etc. Like this...

By the way, his TV appearance might have a little bit more of a healthful glow had he not been rendered a paraplegic in his early 20's, allowing him to, you know, maybe walk....for the last 40 years....to get a little exercise.

I watch a lot of Fox. It's F'n hillarious & i'm often stuck in hotels and public places and if you try to ask for ESPN or CNN those Foxtards go apoplectic. .

It might be more than voting patterns, but not a whole lot more, when you get down to the nitty gritty of what is behind the "voting patterns". Most times everything comes down to a very inherent nature or level of accountability in an individual when looking at voting patterns. Most things in political debate breakdown to an almost sub atomic level of personal responsibility and how it is viewed, accepted, excused or held accountable.

I'm not gonna sit here and say our system is so objective and flawless that nothing can stop the will of the people, b/c a significant level of corruptness most certainly can IMO.

Criminals in this town used to believe in things...honor, respect."I heard your dog is sick, so bought you this shovel"